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Little Storyteller
“In the new beginning, there was only death, and fire.” Nestled in the solitude of darkness, a spark spits life into a pile of slumbering coals. A pair of petite lips lean in closely, breathing strength into the struggling glow. “Once mighty sentinels, sent by the gods to shelter and guide the fragile life held between them, the stars grew angry and turned against their ungrateful charges.” The lips retract back into shadow, replaced by a slender hand, which gently places a few twigs atop the newborn flame. “They sent a wave of burning to remind their people that they existed still, and no matter how strong, how intelligent the little ones became, they could not match the power of the rhythm beyond their sky.” At last, the twigs become engulfed, sending a small flare of light upwards to illuminate the story teller, who gazes, unafraid, into the fire with somber eyes. The shimmering heat plays with her dimensional perception, turning the lonesome, cold damp of a seaside cliff dwelling into a more surreal place. Outside, the farthest reaches of the sun’s shroud creep above the choppy horizon. The warmth of its promise, brought by pulses of pink, bleeds into the purple twilight. Dawn would soon arrive. Gabi blinks the fading moisture from her eyes, welcoming the dryness the crackling tongues of flame bring, and resumes her etching of the floor. She scrapes a little piece of fossilized coral back and forth over the limestone to bring her story to life. “The ancestors of today were those who survived the heavens’ wrath. Some recognized the signs of warning, written in the skies by those guardians who empathized with man. They heeded the wisdom of their elders. They abandoned their great cities, their great wealth, and embraced Merganser’s womb, digging, and hiding deeply within her.” *Scritch*Scratch* Gabi digs a rough outline of huddling humanoids into the gritty canvas. “But some turned a blind eye to these signs because they did not fear their own mortality. It is they who suffered the worst and it is they who died.” The methodical nature of her recitation would seem more natural if she was reading pages from a book. But she is not. “The cursed light in the sky burned brighter than any other star, and it grew brighter still until day and night became as one. But not all living things perished, those of which stayed in the light. Some things endured, changed, and learned to live in their new world.” Flickers of light and shadow play over the forming image of a gnarled, bent tree, sprouting beneath her laboring fingers. “Those who hid from the light were still not spared the reach of its power. When they emerged and saw what had transpired, they, too, were changed. It became known as the new birth. A race, forever altered by the wrath of the stars.” The crude drawing stops, Gabi’s hand stayed by a sudden noise outside. Her breath catches in her throat, pupils glinting sharply in the little fire’s light. She looks towards the mouth of the cave, silent and listening. Waves crashing on the roughened shore below, seabirds muttering softly in their nests, and … footsteps. “And so it was,” Gabi whispers, cupping her hands around a mound of sand and sprinkling the sea dirt over her flame, “that the Sarian people came to be. Born from the death of their old world, left to bravely face a changed one. And so they scattered, like the stars, to explore beyond that sky which once betrayed them. And the stars, having reminded their little ones that they yet lived, were appeased anew, and returned to a rhythm of guidance and light.” Sputtering out with a hiss, the fire dwindles to warmed embers – a slow, red heartbeat in the stifling darkness. The girl creeps beneath her blanket, hands seeking her sole companion in the black – the krayt dragon. It gets hugged close, just as the footsteps climbing the hill crunch inwards to the depths of their cave. Leo. Jedi pilot. She can tell, by the way he moves. She can feel him, through the way he stares, essence discerning. Ever watchful – her guardian, her guide, beneath the starry ones above.